The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Stronghand would listen, and believe.

He was halfway up before he remembered to check under his feet. The mouse was gone. He rubbed his eyes as he glanced up to gauge the position of the stars. How long had he slept? How soon could he act?

“Brother Alain!” Ratbold stumbled up from his crude bower at the edge of the woodland, scratching his stubbled chin and looking mightily irritated. “You did not wake me! Where are the sheep?” He halted as Rage growled at him, startled by his aggressive movement toward Alain.

The disk of the newly reborn sun gilded the eastern tree-tops with a tender clove-pink glow. The fog that weighed down Alain’s soul dissolved as though the rising sun were burning it off.

“God curse him!” Ratbold strode to the center of the meadow; only prior and lay brother stood where the sheep had suffered. Flat patches of grass betrayed where the stricken sheep had lain in their illness. They hadn’t gone far, or long ago. “That damned man has stolen his sheep away!”

“Wait, Prior. I hear them.”

Hidden by the trees, the farmer was laughing, calling out. “Come along! Come along now! Look how they walk!”

Farmer, children, and lambs gamboled into the clearing, the ewes trotting among them under the supervision of the steadfast dog. Ratbold was too astonished to scold them. He rushed over, ignoring the yapping sheepdog, and brusquely examined the hooves and mouths of the ewes. The lambs scattered as he moved among them. The children and the dog rushed around, dog barking, children screaming with delight, as they chased the lambs back from the woodland edge. Light clouds scudded in from the east, shadowing the sun; a shower misted the scene, moving off as quickly as it arrived, and the sun came out from behind the clouds.

“Impossible,” cried Ratbold, checking each of the ewes in turn.

“I said it was not the murrain!” shouted the farmer triumphantly. “Just a fungus. A rot. Cured now! Cured! Once I got them out of the mud.”

“Impossible,” repeated Ratbold.

But true.

Ratbold insisted they remain at the standing two more days to make sure the disease did not reoccur. He believed in the murrain, and he feared that without his supervision the outbreak would spread.

Alain chafed, eager to return to Hersford, but he recognized the farmer’s needs as well. No need to wait fruitlessly when so many spring chores needed doing. Because of the threat of murrain, the local oxherd would not bring his oxen for plowing, so they had to laboriously turn over the earth for the garden by hand. For three days they worked, sweating despite the cool weather, and in the evenings Alain told the children stories and taught the two eldest a little from his meager store of herb-craft, so they might add to their larder and soothe simple illnesses that afflicted them. Three days passed and the sheep showed not the slightest sign of lameness, blistering, or sores. The children’s rashes healed.

It was with a lightened heart that he set out at last beside Ratbold.

“Why did you not wake me that night?” Ratbold asked when they reached the main track and turned toward home.

“I fell asleep, Prior. I pray, grant me your pardon. I meant to wake you.”

“Nay, never mind it. You need no pardon from me.” Ratbold remained distracted as they strode along. He wielded his staff like a weapon, whacking off the heads of thistles as they walked. “That night I dreamed I stood in a high hall waiting for the king to hear my case.”

“The king? Not the abbot?”

“Nay, the king, for I was dressed in the garb of a soldier, as I once was in the king’s service.”

It seemed long ago that Alain had himself stood before the king. Henry had ruled against him, had disinherited him and stripped him of the county gifted to him by a dying Lavastine, but had shown mercy by granting him a position in his own humble Lions. Alain uncovered no anger in his own heart, remembering that day. He only hoped that Lord Geoffrey was proving to be a good steward over Lavas county, that his daughter, and heir, would prove as wise a count as Lavastine had been in his time. That he had failed Lavastine pained him; only that.

“What case did you bring before the king in your dream?”

“I know not.” Ratbold’s habitual frown was set as strongly as ever on his face although his disapproval in this instance seemed turned on himself. “All I did was wait my turn, like a man standing on the knife edge of the Abyss who knows not whether he is meant to fall into the pit or rise to the Chamber of Light. Then I woke. You know what happened next. I should have known. I should have trusted in God.”

They walked for a while without speaking. The peace of the morning sank over them. Here along the track they might have been the only two people in the wide world, alone except for the robins and a flock of honking geese flying north. Birds sang out of the depths of the forest, but the trees were silent, untouched by wind. Water dripped from branches. Shallow pools lay in perfect stillness in basins and ruts cutting across the wheeled track. The hounds padded along with ears raised, listening, alert, pausing now and again to lap up water.

“Why do you stay at Hersford Monastery, Brother?” Ratbold asked at last.

“You took me in when I was desperate and alone. Isn’t that reason enough? But I cannot stay any longer. I know where I must go next. I must find the one who will believe my tale and help me.”

“Alas,” murmured Ratbold. “So we are served for our lack of faith.”

“What do you mean? I, too, had a dream that night, Prior. Do not blame yourself or the others. Why should you? How can it be that any sane man could believe the story I told you when first I came? I can scarcely believe it myself, although I lived through it. Yet I know it is true, and that I must act—I don’t know how, or what I can do. Perhaps nothing. But I must act. I must try. I cannot bear any longer only to stand and wait.”

Ratbold missed a step, staggering, but righted himself as Alain paused to help him. “Let me go with you, Brother.”

“Go with me?” The request astounded him because it was so unexpected.